CORREA, ISABELLA (REBECCA):

Spanish poetess of the seventeenth century; born in Spain; lived successively in Brussels, Antwerp, and Amsterdam; wife of the cosmographer D. Nicolas de Olivier y Fullana (Daniel Judah) of Majorca. Isabella Correa was a friend of Daniel Levi de Barrios, whose "Coro de las Musas" was praised by herself and her husband in verse. She was celebrated for her beauty and wit, her knowledge of the arts, and her linguistic attainments, which are said by some writers to have included nearly all the languages of Europe.

Her principal work is a metrical Spanish translation, with explanatory notes, of the "Pastor Fido" by Guarini (1st and 2d eds., Antwerp, 1694; 3d ed., Amsterdam, 1694), which is dedicated toManuel de Belmonte, the founder of De los Floridos, an academy of poetry of which Isabella was a member. Another of her works, entitled "Varias Poesias," which is said by De Barrios to have been ready for the press, was never published.